Category Archives: EDDC HQ

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9 Dec 2018

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Accountability, EDDC, EDDC HQ, Privatisation

Good job EDDC’s HQ is almost finished … and let’s hope it is perfect … !

“Cabinet Office mandarins are believed to have sounded out Interserve’s rivals about the possibility of taking on some of the outsourcer’s work.

The cleaning and building company is heading for a debt-for-equity swap with its lenders as it creaks under debts of £650m. The swap could wipe out shareholders.

Interserve is a significant government supplier, with long-term deals for schools, hospitals and motorways. Jon Trickett, Labour’s shadow minister for the Cabinet Office, last night called for a temporary ban on the company bidding for public contracts — “until they have proved they are financially stable and there is no risk to the taxpayer”.

Interserve said: “The fundamentals of the business are strong and the board is focused on ensuring Interserve has the right financial structure to support its future success.”

Source: Sunday Times

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8 Dec 2018

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Accountability, EDDC HQ, Outsourcing, Privatisation

Privatisation – another big company seeks rescue – the one building EDDC HQ!

Owl says: Has the message still not got through? Privatise, give your directors MASSIVE salaries and bonuses, look after your shareholders. Then, when it all goes belly-up either (a) get the government (ie us) to bail you out or (b) let your government clients (ie us) go to the wall!

“Interserve: Major government contractor ‘seeks second rescue deal’

One of the UK’s largest providers of public services is seeking a rescue deal as it struggles with £500m of debt, according to the Financial Times.
Interserve, which works in prisons, schools, hospitals and on the roads, said it might look for new investment or sell off part of the business.
Workers at the Foreign Office and the NHS are among Interserve’s tens of thousands of UK employees.

The government said it supported the company’s long-term recovery plan.
The Financial Times reported that the company was looking for a deal to refinance its debt which would mean lenders taking a significant loss while public shareholders would be “virtually wiped out”.

Its share price dropped to a 30-year low last month.

Despite lucrative contracts in the Middle East and its wide range of work in the UK, the company has continued to lose money since March, when it agreed an earlier rescue deal.

Its troubles have been blamed on cancellations and delays in its construction contracts as well as struggling waste-to-energy projects in Derby and Glasgow.

Interserve claims its prospects are improving, and says it will increase profits this year.

What does Interserve do?

From its origins in dredging and construction, the company has diversified into wide range of services, such as health care and catering, for clients in government and industry.

At King George Hospital in east London, for instance, Interserve has a £35 million contract for for cleaning, security, meals, waste management and maintenance.

Its infrastructure projects include improving the M5 Junction 6 near Bristol, refurbishing the Rotherham Interchange bus station in Yorkshire, and upgrading sewers and water pipes for Northumbrian Water.

But Interserve is also the largest provider of probation services in England and Wales, supervising about 40,000 “medium-low risk offenders” for the Ministry of Justice.

In a statement, Interserve said: “The fundamentals of the business are strong and the board is focused on ensuring Interserve has the right financial structure to support its future success.”

The company said its options included bringing “new capital into the business and progressing the disposal of non-core businesses “.

Interserve’s difficulties follow the collapse of Carillion in January 2018, which put thousands of jobs at risk and cost taxpayers £148m.

Government reassures over Interserve

Following that, the government launched a pilot of “living wills” for contractors, so that critical services can be taken over in the event of a crisis. Interserve is one of five suppliers taking part.

A Cabinet Office spokesperson said: “We monitor the financial health of all of our strategic suppliers, including Interserve, and have regular discussions with the company’s management. The company successfully raised new debt facilities earlier this year, and we fully support them in their long term recovery plan.”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-46494465

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23 Nov 2018

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Developers/ Development, EDDC, EDDC HQ

EDDC HQ builder in trouble

Owl says: better get that building up and snagged quickly!

“Interserve shares fall as growing debt sparks fears over its finances.

Shares in Interserve fell 7% on Friday morning after the government contractor said debts this year would be higher than previously expected, reigniting investor jitters about the financial health of the firm.

The company, which carries out building work and provides services such as cleaning, said debts would be between £625m and £650m by the end of the year, having earlier said debts would be £575m to £600m.

It comes a week after Interserve was forced to comment on the state of its finances, after shares tumbled to a 30-year low over fears it was heading the same way as Carillion, the rival outsourcing firm that collapsed in January.

The drop was prompted by an update from waste-to-product manufacturer Renewi, which said Interserve had missed a deadline on a joint venture in Derby that aims to produce energy from waste. The update prompted speculation that Interserve may be forced to set aside more cash to compensate for delays.”

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/nov/23/interserve-shares-dive-as-growing-debt-sparks-fears-over-its-finances

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6 Nov 2018

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Accountability, Developers/ Development, EDDC HQ, Hugo Swire

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Swire wants planning officers to be accredited yearly while a Tory aesthetic political philosoper tries to improve building design!

One should see this in context.

1. This government refused to support CABE (Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment) and it was subsumed into the charitable “Design Council”. Design Council CABE, is intended to operate as a “self-sustaining” business ie no support from the government.

2. NOW the government is worried about all the developer-led atrocities of design and building and needs to be seen to be sort-of doing something (preferably something on the cheap).

3. The person Swire refers to effusively – Sir Roger Scruton – is described thus in Wikipedia:

“Sir Roger Vernon Scruton FBA FRSL is an English philosopher and writer who specialises in aesthetics and political philosophy, particularly in the furtherance of traditionalist conservative views.”

4. Swire is positioning himself for a general election – expect more of this sort of thing!

Question from Swire:

“I warmly congratulate my right hon. Friend on the establishment of the Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission and the inspired choice of Sir Roger Scruton as the chairman, but, first, does my right hon. Friend not agree that this will only have any teeth if we can get the volume house builders to buy into it? Secondly, I think that the commission should be extended to look at the quality and the variable advice often given by local planning officers and at a full accreditation scheme for those planning officers on an annual basis to refresh them.”

Response from James BrokenshireJames Brokenshire The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government:

“I certainly want the new commission to drive quality in the built environment, which is at the heart of what my right hon. Friend said. If we do that, we can speed up this process and get greater support and consent from the public in building the homes that our country needs. I therefore think that the house builders should very much embrace this.”

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7 Aug 2018

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Accountability, EDDC, EDDC HQ

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Better hope that new EDDC HQ is nearly finished …

… as its chosen builder (Interserve) is going through a very rough patch:

https://www.constructionenquirer.com/2018/08/07/more-losses-at-interserve-as-debt-levels-top-600m/

Better hope that yew tree spell does the trick:

https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/yew-tree-ward-evil-spirits-1687885

Check that roof … and the walls … and the wiring … and the plumbing … we wouldn’t want it costing more than the “old” HQ to put right would we …!

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2 Aug 2018

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Accountability, EDDC, EDDC HQ, Local Government Finance

“Public Works Loan Board loans rise as councils try to shore up financial futures”

This is how EDDC is financing the shortfall of the build of its new HQ – you know, the one that was supposed to be “cost neutral” and was costing around £10 million at the last evaluation.

“Local authority borrowing from the Public Works Loan Board has reached a seven-year high as cash-strapped councils increasingly invest in capital projects.

In the last financial year the PWLB increased the value of loans to local authorities by 42%. It advanced 780 loans with a value of £5.2bn to local authorities, compared to 622 loans with a total value of £3.6bn in 2016-17, the board’s annual accounts, released yesterday showed.

The value of loans has been going up in recent years after dropping to £3.2bn in 2012-13 following a high of £16bn in 2011-12.

Paul Dossett, head of local government at Grant Thornton, said the rise was part of a growing trend of councils borrowing more – and not just from the PWLB.

As a recent analysis by PF showed, local authorities are increasingly looking at methods such as bonds and forward-starting loans for capital projects.

“It reflects the growing increase we have seen in capital investment in local authority infrastructure as a whole,” he said.

“While different councils have different options and approaches to generating income, a small amount of this increase is likely to relate to investment in assets for income generation.”

Although, he believed the rate of councils investing in assets for commercial gain might have slowed since the government responded to its consultation on the prudential code earlier this year.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government announced in Feburary it will now require local authorities to produce an annual investment strategy to ensure greater transparency. …”

https://www.publicfinance.co.uk/news/2018/08/pwlb-loans-rise-councils-try-shore-financial-futures

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10 Jul 2018

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EDDC HQ

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Will EDDC’s new open-plan HQ improve productivity? Probably not!

“In the cartoon strip Dilbert, the boss starts a meeting by pondering a classic dilemma of modern working life. “We’re trying to decide if it’s better to have an open-plan office with too many distractions to be productive,” he says, “or soul-crushing cubicles that will make every employee envy the dead.”

There is important new evidence that could help him in his decision. While cubicles might still be soul-crushing, it turns out that open-plan offices do not — as many advocates argue — actually increase human contact. Instead, a study has found that in an open-plan office, far from being distracted by each other, we create virtual walls. We meet each other far less and communicate by email far more.

This is bad news for one of the most popular fads in office design. One of the chief arguments in favour of open-plan offices has always been that they increase “collective intelligence” by forcing people to meet each other.

When two large companies, which have been kept anonymous, made the shift from cubicles to open plan, researchers took the opportunity to test the theory. For a study in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, they placed devices on employees that measured where they were standing, whether they were talking and who they were talking to. They also recorded their volume of email and instant messaging use. The results were unambiguous. By looking at a three-week period before the change, and comparing it with a three-week period three months after, they found that face-to-face interaction in the open-plan offices plummeted by 70 per cent.

There was a corresponding rise in email and instant messaging communication. Ethan Bernstein, from Harvard Business School, said that he did not know what to expect when he began the study. “On the one hand, it is hard to believe that people would not have a more vibrant and interactive experience when they work in an open office,” he said. “The sociology of it is clear: ‘proximity breeds interaction’.

“On the other hand, I’ve spent enough time on the Tube at rush hour to see that being packed together doesn’t necessarily lead to interaction.”

He said that the research seemed to show that precisely this paradigm was at play — that when people had too little privacy they were more likely to try to compensate in other ways.

“Look around open-plan offices and you can see why this might be,” he said. “People put on huge headphones to avoid distraction. They stare intently at their screens because they know people are watching and want to look busy. Then people looking at them from across the room see someone working intently and don’t want to interrupt. So they send an email instead.”

Source:The Times (pay wall)

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19 Jun 2018

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Accountability, Asset Management Group, Asset sweating, Council tax, EDDC HQ, EDDC Monitoring Officer, Inequality

The Great Public Asset Sale!

No mention of community hospital sales – many hospitals having been financed by the local population.

And it begs the question: if the community has no assets and is getting only statutory services which are funded out of general taxation – what are we paying (increased) council taxes for?

“Libraries, swimming pools, youth and community centres, town halls, parks and other open spaces were among more than 4,000 public assets sold by local councils to developers and other private buyers last year.

Sales appear to have risen since George Osborne, who was then the chancellor, changed the rules in 2016 to allow local authorities to use money from sales of publicly owned buildings and land to cover running costs. Campaigners say that authorities facing financial pressures are denying future generations access to many community assets.

Locality, a network of community organisations, submitted freedom of information requests to all 353 local authorities in England asking about asset sales, of which 240 responded. The results showed that councils sold 4,131 buildings or plots of land last year.

Tony Armstrong, the chief executive of Locality, said: “One of the concerns we have is that many local authorities are just selling these assets off, and until now we have not had a clear picture of the scale of this.” He called for more buildings and sites that councils could no longer operate to be transferred to community groups that could run them on a not-for-profit basis.

Richard Watts, of the Local Government Association, said: “With local government facing an overall funding gap in excess of £5 billion a year by 2020, councils face difficult decisions about how best to use their resources to support local services, day-to-day activities and to protect public assets. Before a decision is made to sell an asset, the cost of selling it versus the benefit it could bring is considered carefully.”

Source:Times (pay wall)

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16 Jun 2018

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Accountability, Austerity cuts, EDDC, EDDC HQ, Knowle/Honiton/Exmouth relocation

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Sums on Knowle relocation not adding up for us, the taxpayers

“Remaining at Knowle with essential and basic repairs undertaken would have cost the council £ 4.5m over 20 years. In contrast moving to the new HQ in Honiton will provide a cash saving of £ 1.4m over the same period. That’s a difference of £5.9m.’

The above quote is lifted from the EDDC web-site.

So even using their figures, it will take 20 years to recover half the cost of the new building. Only after 40 years will we get our money back.

So if we see a Devon unitary authority in the next 40 years we will lose money.

But, of course, it’s much worse, because the EDDC numbers assume that there will be no ‘essential and basic repairs’ to the new building over those 40 years. Impossible, of course.

Even worse, no-one wanted EDDC to remain in the whole of the Knowle building. Those opposed to the move recommended that EDDC retrench to the modern buildings that were built in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Half the size of the Knowle as it now stands. So, even using EDDC’s figures, half the size would mean half the ‘essential and basic repairs’, so only £2.25 million, and half the ‘cash saving’ of £1.4 million, so a trifling £700,000 over 20 years. Peanuts.

So even using EDDC’s own numbers, the new building cannot produce any savings for 80 years.

Even, even worse, EDDC has borrowed the money to build the new building. The cost of borrowing £11 million, the notional build cost of Blackdown House, is of the order of £400,000 per annum, dwarfing the expected savings.

Even, even, even worse, the costs of the new building do not include the fees charged by various advisers over many years, the cost of the move itself, compensation to staff forced to travel further, new equipment, officer and councillor time, and the cost in terms of disruption. Plus all the costs of disposing of the Knowle.

The true cost of relocation is almost certainly at least £20 million.

Even, even, even, even worse, those EDDC numbers do not take into account the ‘essential and basic’ repairs conducted at their new Exmouth office, which came in at a whopping £1.7 million. Nor the running costs of Exmouth, which will surely be at least £1.4 million over that 20 year period. Almost certainly much more: Exmouth is, of course, an old building from the 1920s, far older than the modern brick buildings at Knowle.

Blackdown House will be a tremendous drain upon the finances of EDDC from the day it opens, and the expected cost savings thereafter will be microscopic compared to the huge borrowing costs.

But the biggest problem of all is that EDDC’s own consultants informed them that the building constructed at a cost of £20 million would only have an open market value on its completion of £3 million. That included the value of the land on which it sits.

So, if Devon goes unitary any time in the next few years, we will have lost £17 million.

The only good news for residents of East Devon is that the whole of Devon will then have to pay the bill and the borrowing costs.

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6 May 2018

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Accountability, Austerity cuts, EDDC HQ, Feniton/ Talaton, Honiton/ Gittisham, Inequality, NHS (local), Phil Twiss

Do you have a damp home? Do you need an affordable home? Contact Councillor Phil Twiss to get your problems sorted!

It seems councillor Twiss is a modern-day superhero – able to help you with just about any problem you might come across.

So, if you live in Honiton, do contact him:

Email: ptwiss@eastdevon.gov.uk
Telephone: 01404 891327
Address: Swallowcliff, Beacon, Honiton, EX14 4TT

http://eastdevon.gov.uk/council-and-democracy/councillors/honiton-st-michaels/phil-twiss/

or at DCC:
Email: phil.twiss@devon.gov.uk

True, he hasn’t so far sorted East Devon’s broadband not-spots, wasn’t able to halt the closure of Honiton Hospital’s community beds or stop Baker Estates from weaselling out of their affordable housing commitments and the ‘fillip’ to Honiton’s jobs and shops when the EDDC HQ moves to Honiton will be at the expense of Sidmouth … but these are just minor hiccoughs … aren’t they?

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1 May 2018

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Accountability, EDDC HQ, Scrutiny

More news on EDDC’s new HQ builder

Owl says: EDDC getting a taste of the new build problems many house buyers are getting in East Devon, though this time it’s our taxes paying for them. Hope it is a fixed-price contract with penalty clauses and good insurance!

“… Signing up to a host of loss-making contracts and a disastrous foray into building energy-from-waste facilities have helped to send Interserve tumbling £244 million into the red.

Glyn Barker, chairman of the private sector provider of public services, said that the company had “suffered unprecedented levels of disruption and faced significant challenges” as it reported deep losses and warned that debts could more than double to £680 million this year….

The company’s shares, which have crashed by more than 80 per cent over the past five years, slumped a further 13¼p, or 12.3 per cent, to close at 93¾p yesterday.

The £244 million losses for 2017 included a 62 per cent slump in underlying operating profits to £52 million. Interserve was dragged into the red by writedowns of £98 million on the value of its assets, £67 million of restructuring and property costs and provisions of £86 million for lossmaking contracts.

About 125 of its contracts are in trouble. These are mainly in construction, but also include losses that Interserve is taking for looking after US military bases in Britain and a hit from the part-privatisation of the Probation Service. It took an extra £35 million of charges in the energy-from-waste fiasco that started the company’s crisis after it incurred £160 million of fines and penalties in 2016.

Interserve also reported £14 million of payments to consultants and advisers with a warning that the company would incur another £25 million this year.

Last week Interserve raised £196 million, taking its borrowing facilities to £834 million. Ms White said: “I would not say we are out of the woods. The debt refinancing has taken up a lot of our time.”

Source: Times (pay wall)

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12 Mar 2018

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Accountability, Austerity cuts, Developers/ Development, East Devon Alliance, EDDC, EDDC HQ, Knowle/Honiton/Exmouth relocation, PegasusLife

EDDC “Council decision to sell HQ for £7.5M is worst deal ever, activists”

“Activists have branded a council decision to sell its HQ “the worst deal ever” for taxpayers.

East Devon District Council is selling its offices at Knowle in Sidmouth to Pegasus Life Ltd, one of Britain’s largest retirement housing developers, for £7.5 million.

The developable value of the site – divulged in a response to a Freedom of Information request in January-has been set at £50 million, with Pegasus Life Ltd set to make a £10 million profit.

Pegasus is owned by an American firm listed in the so-called Paradise Papers, 13.4 million confidential electronic documents relating to offshore investments that were leaked to German reporters last year. Offshore investments enable companies and individuals to shelter their wealth and avoid tax. They are legal.

Paul Arnott, chairman of the East Devon Alliance campaign group, said: “Why were councillors never told that our last great piece of family silver the Knowle – would be worth a massive £50 million after development?

“If any individual person in East Devon was told their prime location property could be developed and sold on for £50 million they’d never accept £7 million.”

In December 2016, the council’s planning committee rejected Pegasus Life’s planning application for 113 extra care units, but following a four-day inquiry into the developer’s appeal in November, a planning inspector gave the firm approval for the scheme which includes a café and swimming pool. Sidmouth has been allocated only 50 extra care homes in the council’s Local Plan.

The Alliance said it was an “exceptionally bad” deal, because, in accordance with the old land buyer’s rule of thumb, the landowner of a site should expect around a third of its developable value – in this case £16.5 million.
A council spokesperson said the deal was based on the site’s land value – in its current state. The site includes the buildings, terraces and top car parks.

Moving council operations to Honiton, with a satellite office at Exmouth Town Hall, has a budget of £10 million and is being funded out of the council’s coffers and a Public Works Loan Board loan.

The council spokesperson said that “from day one”, council running costs would reduce significantly when it leaves the Knowle and during its first full year of operations at Honiton it will save £135,000, with savings increasing year-on-year.

The Alliance pointed out that because the proposed complex is considered to be a residential/care home development, as opposed to a general residential development, the developer is not required to pay Section 106 money towards providing community services. The developer is only contributing £12,000 to improve access/footpaths to the site from adjacent parkland.

However, the developer could have to comply with what is known as an overage clause: If more than a 20% profit is made from the development, the council will be entitled to 50% of any profit made over and above the 20%, to a maximum of £3.5 million.

A council spokesperson, said: “We have carried out due diligence on Pegasus Life Ltd and are satisfied that they are an established and successful company suitably financed, capable of delivering the promised development and able satisfy their contract with the council.

“Selling the Knowle and moving offices is key to continuing to serve our communities. Services to our communities are what matter, not the vanity of paying to stay in an outdated and expensive building.

Pegasus Life Ltd bosses did not comment when asked whether any of the profit of its Sidmouth development could end up in tax havens. However, Howard Phillips, its chief executive, said: “We pride ourselves on the quality of our developments and the sensitivity of our designs to ensure they fit in with the area’s achitectural vernacular.

“The UK is in the middle of housing crisis and local authorities need to make cohesive eve plans that meet the needs their local towns. This includes provision for people over 60.”

Source: Western Morning Newz

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7 Mar 2018

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Austerity cuts, EDDC, EDDC HQ, Freedom of Information Act

Who will be working where with the new EDDC HQ

Freedom of Information request 19 February 2018. EDDC seems to be increasing staff during austerity.

“Total number of employees working for EDDC
513 – data as at 28 February 2018.

How many currently working remotely or ‘on the move’ are:

A) based in Exmouth Town Hall -79
B) based in Sidmouth – 280
154 are based elsewhere across the district including THG, Manor Pavilion, Cranbrook, StreetScene depots, parks and gardens, Lymebourne House, Business Centre, Camperdown or may be mobile touching down at both ETH and Knowle.

How will this situation change once the new office opens in Honiton (number):

It remains to be seen exactly but I would expect the majority of the 280 to relocate to Honiton but I will be consulting with all individuals and where there are people who potentially live in Exmouth who can work more sensibly from Exmouth we may make adjustments.”

http://eastdevon.gov.uk/access-to-information/freedom-of-information/freedom-of-information-published-requests/

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11 Feb 2018

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Accountability, Accountable Care Organisation, Austerity cuts, DCC, EDDC, EDDC HQ, Health and Social Care (local), Planning System, Unitisation

Unitary authorities – the austerity measure that can’t be stopped?

Wonder what that new £10m EDDC HQ will be used for?

“Simon Heffer writes in the Sunday Telegraph to call on the Government to simplify and streamline the UK’s councils, replacing the system of county and district councils with county-level unitary authorities.

The need for “wholesale reform”, he says, has been made urgent by the problem of “social care that will break local government” and former chancellor George Osborne’s “disastrously flawed business rate system, which has had a profound effect on revenue-raising”.

He says that a system of unitary authorities would reduce payroll, offer the chance to sell off assets, and improve the handling of planning decisions, while the Government should remove “huge strategic questions such as social care from council control altogether”.

The Sunday Telegraph, Page: 21

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2 Feb 2018

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Accountability, Austerity cuts, EDDC HQ

Struggling council may have to sell its new HQ …

Bet that caused a few palpitations and raised blood pressure in East Devon! But it’s Northamptonshire which has banned all but essential services spending.

“A cash-strapped local authority has imposed emergency spending controls as it faces “severe financial challenges”.

The section 114 notice bans all new expenditure at Northamptonshire County Council, with the exception of statutory services for protecting vulnerable people.

Last month the government said an inspector would look into allegations of financial failings at the authority.

It is believed to be the first such notice issued in more than 20 years…

The Conservative-led council announced in December that it was looking to increase council tax by almost 5% as it sought to make savings of £34.3m.
At the time, council leaders claimed they were facing huge demand for services, as well as cuts in government grants.

It was revealed in January the authority was considering selling its new £53m headquarters, which officially opened in October.

One Angel Square was designed to save money by closing 12 offices and making best use of a new office block. …”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-42920716

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23 Jan 2018

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EDDC, EDDC HQ, Knowle/Honiton/Exmouth relocation

Well, that’s it: PegasusLife wins Knowle appeal

“An application to create a 113-home retirement community at East Devon District Council’s current HQ has been allowed on appeal by the Planning Inspector.

PegasusLife lodged an appeal following the scheme’s refusal in December 2016.

A public inquiry was held over five days in November 2017.

The new development will be classed C2, which means Sidmouth will miss out on thousands of pounds’ worth of contributions towards affordable housing.

Read reactions in Friday’s Sidmouth Herald.”

http://www.sidmouthherald.co.uk/news/developer-wins-appeal-for-113-home-retirement-community-at-knowle-1-5365209

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23 Jan 2018

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Accountability, Austerity cuts, DCC, EDDC, EDDC HQ

“Secretary of State forecasts increase in number of unitary authorities”

Might Devon unitisation take place soon AFTER EDDC moves to its new luxury HQ?

“The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government says he expects the number of unitary authorities in England to be higher in five years’ time.

Sajid Javid’s comments came in response to a question from former Cabinet colleague Patrick McLoughlin, who noted that both Scotland and Wales “are totally served by unitary local authorities”.

Sajid Javid 146x219The Secretary of State responded: “I can tell him that 60% of English people are served by unitary authorities, and I expect the number to be higher in five years’ time, given the views of many local people about unitary authorities and our commitment to consider unitarisation whenever requested.”

In November 2017 Javid said he was ‘minded to’ back the Future Dorset plans, which involve the replacement of the nine local authorities in the council with two unitaries.

Under this model, one ‘urban’ unitary would be created through the merger of Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch. The other ‘rural’ unitary would be established from East Dorset, North Dorset, Purbeck, West Dorset and Weymouth & Portland. The county council would cease to exist.

However, councillors at Christchurch agreed this month to write to the Secretary of State to set out their vision of an alternative to the proposed shake-up. The council also approved an initial budget of £15,000 to take legal advice “and if necessary initiate legal proceedings to protect the interests of Christchurch Borough Council and its residents”.

Though not involving the establishment of unitary authorities, the Secretary of State said in December that he was ‘minded to’ back the merger of Taunton Deane Borough Council and West Somerset District Council, and the merger of Forest Heath District Council and St Edmundsbury Borough Council into single district councils.”

http://localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk/index.php

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7 Oct 2017

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Accountability, Austerity cuts, EDDC, EDDC HQ, Spin

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EDDC: What they say, and what Owl thinks they mean

Council spin decoded:

PRESS RELEASE

“The council’s latest annual Working Together for the Future of East Devon conference, which brings together voluntary and statutory organisations, was attended by more than 100 people. Councillor Jill Elson, EDDC’s portfolio holder for sustainable homes and communities, who organised the event, said she was delighted with the high level of attendance from voluntary organisations, community groups and town and parish councils.

She said: “Volunteers are becoming essential as a means of helping ensure that people have the best quality of life they can, particularly with more people wishing to be cared for at home.

“Whatever support they offer, all volunteers make a difference and ensure that people’s lives are enriched and that they are not forgotten.” “

DECODED:

We are durned well not going to pay for anything you lot will do for free, so get your noses to the grindstone and save us lots of money to squander on our new HQ. Oh, and although we aren’t respinsible for social care we allowed our Leader to torpedo the NHS, so you’d better fill the gaps because we won’t.

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20 Sep 2017

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Accountability, Asset Management Group, EDDC, EDDC HQ, Exmouth, Knowle/Honiton/Exmouth relocation, PegasusLife, Post-Brexit Adjustments, Scrutiny, SWAP (EDDC internal audit)

Council’s £1 million overspend investigated; our council’s multimillion overspend on new HQ not investigated!

OUR council has already spent nearly that much on its satellite HQ in Exmouth. The Honiton HQ was supposed to be cost neutral with the proceeds of the £7 Knowle sale to PegasusLife but latest estimates (some while ago and not adjusted for post-Brexit soaring costs) was around £10 million.

How come SWAP could do this in Herefordshire but not in East Devon. Or why KPMG – its new auditors – are not doing it now?

“A special investigation into how the costs of establishing a joint customer services hub in a refurbished building soared from £950,000 to more than £1.9m has found evidence that officers “knowingly disregarded council process and procedures”.

The investigation into the Blueschool House refurbishment was carried out by the South West Audit Partnership for Herefordshire Council. The local authority has been working with the Department of Work and Pensions on the project. Have we ever seen the (updated) business case for the new HQ?

The business case for the hub was approved by the council’s Director of Resources on 13 May 2016 and the key decision taken on 2 June 2016 was approved by the Cabinet Member Contracts and Assets.

The SWAP report said: “Overall the council’s normal governance processes have not been followed by key officers involved in the Blueschool House refurbishment.

The key decision did follow the correct governance process however the business case to support the key decision lacked clarity over what works would be included in the £950K agreed financial envelope.

“It would appear that key staff including senior officers at Director level were aware of the council processes and procedures but these have not been applied during this project and there is evidence that officers have knowingly disregarded council process and procedure.”

The investigation found that although there were early indications from the framework provider that the project could not be delivered within the financial envelope even with value engineering, key officers failed to report this to Cabinet.

The report also said:

The rationale for the selection of the contractor could not be demonstrated as there were no records to support this. The property services team had responded to client requests without providing robust challenge, and had not followed the council procedure rules in relation to procurement.

The relationship between the property services team and contractors appeared to be informal for a capital project of this value and throughout the project there was little evidence that value for money could be demonstrated.

In line with the capital guidance, major projects should be overseen by a project board. The Accommodation Programme Board had oversight of the overall accommodation strategy until November 2016 however, there was no project board for the Blueschool House refurbishment project.

The timescale of the project was identified as a major risk in the business case as the project was subject to a time constraint pressure due to the DWP serving notice on their current property. This was a key factor in ensuring the project was progressed and had contributed to the overall poor governance.

The SWAP report said it was “for management to consider and determine whether any further action such as disciplinary action, should be taken against individual officers as it is clear there has been disregard for processes and procedures which has resulted in a significant overspend on the project”.

The report was due to be considered by the council’s audit and governance committee at a meeting this week (20 September).”

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